


The Superwoman Interview

by twriting



Series: Action! Starring Lois Lane (With Special Guest Appearances By The Woman Of Steel) [4]
Category: Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Clark Kent is now a college student named Cantrell, Female Clark Kent, but Kent still can't escape the gravitational pull of Lois Lane, synopsis for those who haven't read the rest of my au and don't want to:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23950135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twriting/pseuds/twriting
Summary: First Lois manages to corner Kent for an interview about Smallville's boy genius/nuclear terrorist Lex Luthor, then the mysterious 'Superwoman' shows up at the Daily Planet for a one-one-one talk. Things are starting to come together for Lois.
Relationships: Clark Kent & Lois Lane
Series: Action! Starring Lois Lane (With Special Guest Appearances By The Woman Of Steel) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1644715
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

"Say it, Troupe! Who was right? Say it!"

Lois knows she's been insufferable all night and she doesn't care. After being kidnapped by a bunch of rich douchebags, hauled out of a moving car by a flying woman, wasting time giving a statement to the cops, and pulling an all-nighter at work, she figures she's earned the right to a certain degree of insufferableness. And also, she was right.

"Lois Lane one billion, Ron Troupe negative ten billion! _Hah!_ "

At his desk Troupe scowls and maybe even growls a bit at Lois. From across the office floor Perry White shakes a handful of printouts. "Lane, go sit down. Ron, just say she was right so she can finally pass out or something."

"Yyrrrrght, Lois." Troupe mutters.

" _Hah_ , again!" Lois drops into her chair. Lois's cubicle is across from Ron Troupe's, so she watches as Troupe edits and updates material Lois wrote months ago. Material Perry White refused to publish until they had solid backing for it. Now Troupe, Shuster, and Maggins are all grinding out stories based on her research and last night's thoroughly documented and livestreamed events, and Lois is going to get _so many bylines_ out of this. The entire headline story from last night's online and print editions is hers, and every story on this morning's front-page update will have her name on it.

She's still wearing her dress from last night, and missing both her shoes. But the important thing is that she saw the Superwoman ("Looks good in a headline," White had said at oh-two-hundred last night) up close and personal. And she has so many more things to report. But she can't prove them yet and White always wants hard facts or he just won't run the story, like the way he keeps sitting on Lois's reports about President Finch's Task Force Ten program.

An image of grey-haired walrus Perry White sitting on on a stack of squirming stories, chewing on one of the cigars he was supposed to have stopped smoking ten years ago, flashes through Lois's mind. That's not what convinces her she needs sleep. The fact that the stories are peeping like baby chicks is what does it.

"Ugh." Lois opens her desks bottom drawer and halls out the flat pillow. She shoves her keyboard aside and starts building her nest for sleep. The Planet has rooms with cots, but Lois wants to be at her desk if anything big comes in.

Ron Troupe looks over at Lois. His face is an expressionless mask. He glances around to be sure White is in his office. Then, face still a mask, he raises his right fist. With his left he makes cranking motions at his wrist, and slowly raises his middle finger.

"You're just jealous 'cause I'm getting another Pulitzer out of this."

"Here," Troupe grabs his jacket off a wall hook and tosses it to her. "Cover your legs before you flash the office in your sleep. Again."

"Thanks, Troupe." Lois spreads the jacket over her legs and lowers her head to to the pillow. "If we were in prison you'd be my favourite bitch."

Whatever Troupe is about to say is cut short by a yell. Olsen. "I got pictures!"

Banging her head softly on the pillow, Lois hears White's office door slam open. "Jimmy if they're not of this Superwoman you'd better start running now!"

"They are! I swear!"

Lois pushes herself up and leans on the cubicle wall for support. "What've you got, Olsen?"

"She - " Jimmy cuts himself short and does a double take. "Are you hungover?"

"Little bit. Let's see the pictures."

Already standing by Olsen, Perry White puts an arm around the short white kid and smiles. "Kid, I knew there was a reason I hadn't fired you yet."

"You can't fire me! This is a university internship!"

"Don't challenge me, red." White looks down at Jimmy. "Why is there blood on your dress?"

"It's okay, most of it isn't mine." Jimmy pulls at his shredded little black dress. Lois recognizes it as part of the Madison Exclusives line, which means it's probably around four hundred dollars worth of rags now. "Me and Bates were outside city hall for the police press announcement when this superwoman flew in with a boatload of human smugglers. Things got a little crazy. I would've sent the pictures sooner but I haven't been able to get a signal since that guy from the Guardian stepped on my camera."

White frowns and works his jaw as though he were clenching a forbidden cigar in his teeth. Dragging Jimmy towards his office he growls, "Bates hasn't sent anything in. For his own sake he'd better be dead."

Lois considers following them. Curiousity fights and loses a brief war with exhaustion. She lowers herself back into her chair and rearranges Ron's jacket across her legs. Across the office, the elevator door pings softly as Lois lowers her head to the pillow.

The drone of voices and soft clunking of fingers on worn-out keyboards fades. A mug thuds on industrial carpeting. _Christ she's tall_ , someone says.

Footsteps draw near. And strangely, so does the smell of sweet coffee. Blue tights and red boots enter Lois's view. A hand in a scarlet and gold cloth gauntlet holds out a Jitters to-go cup, labelled _Caffè Tobio 2xsugar_.

"Ms Lane, I thought you might need this. Is now a bad time?"


	2. Chapter 2

Lois Lane does not wobble, thank you very much, as she pushes herself up from her desk. If you think she's wobbling maybe you should get your eyes checked.

She's willing to admit to leaning a bit to the left. Saying thanks, Lois takes the coffee and has chugged a third of it before she realizes she accepted a gift from an investigative subject. Mentally she shrugs and finishes the coffee.

Fully aware that the whole situation is ridiculous - She's just had coffee delivered by a flying woman in a cape and onesie - Lois drops the empty cup on her desk and looks the Superwoman in the eyes. LED-blue light glows from her pupils, which Lois finds really distracting. Probably that's why she does it. "How did you know my coffee order?"

"I didn't," Superwoman, or _the_ Superwoman, Lois still isn't sure about that definitive article, says. "I asked at the Jitters in the lobby. It's on your tab, by the way. You'll need to pay that at some point."

"Thanks," Lois says, and speaking of ridiculous here she is having a polite conversation with someone who is literally as powerful as a natural disaster. Troupe and Maggins are on their feet gawking, and a crowd is gathering. No one's getting too close, but the aisles are filling up. This being a crowd of newshounds they all have their phones out recording the scene.

White drags Olsen out of his office and shoves him towards the group around Superwoman. Any second now Jimmy will say _Hey!_ or _Waaaiiit a minute!_ or _something, damnit, Jimmy you idiot!_ to prove that Lois is right. But Jimmy stays quiet as he pushes his way through the crowd to get a better vantage point.

It's the eyes, Lois thinks. You can't connect those eyes to a real person. The eyes and the hovering.

Instead of looking at the Superwoman's face, veteran reporter Ron Troupe is staring at her scarlet boots, the soles of which are about an inch above the Planet's twenty year old taupe and purple carpet. The Superwoman doesn't drift as she hovers, she just hangs in the air as steady as a rock on solid ground.

Fine. If everyone else is going to stare like a bus full of tourists, Lois will do the job. "We have some questions for you. I hope you have answers."

Glancing over at Jimmy, Lois sees he has not one but two cameras out. In one hand he holds a compact high-end model that can capture video recordings while taking pictures but is still small enough to fit discretely into a jacket pocket. In his other he has an ordinary camera, held slightly above his head to take pictures from a different angle. Everything Jimmy sees of this woman will be filtered through lenses and angles, framed for newsworthiness.

Lois looks away from him. No help there. Jimmy's objectivity is shot.

"Of course," says the Superwoman. "I'm here to tell the truth."

Looking Superwoman right in those impossibly sky-blue eyes, Lois nods. _We'll see about that_.

* * *

* * *

**Let's start from the beginning. Who are you?**

"My name is Kala Jor-El, faon ma Jor-El pa Lara-Lor-Van-laom-El. Translated into English that means 'Child of Great Star and Star-Wed Light of Waxing Moon'. But for most purposes, Kala will do."

**Some people have been calling you 'Superwoman'.**

"I'm aware of that. It's not my name."

**What does the S stand for?**

"It's not an S. It's the crest of the House of El, my clan. On my homeworld, it meant hope."

**Your homeworld? Are you saying you're an alien?**

"Yes, sort of. So far as I can tell, Kryptonian humans were related to Earth humans in some way. It's hard to be certain though. Kryptonian physics and engineering were very advanced, but Earth seems to be more advanced in biology and medicine."

**'Kryptonian'. Is that the name of your people? Do they all have powers like you?**

"' _Krypton ma Kithera_ ', the People of Krypton. Krypton's environment was harsher than Earth's, and no one had what you call powers. Earth's environment has nourished me. Here, my natural abilities have become amplified. I've become far stronger and faster than my parents anticipated when they sent me here as a refugee."

**You said refugee. You keep speaking in the past tense. Why are you here?**

"My homeworld is dead. Krypton was much more dense than Earth, and had greater internal pressures. Those pressures caused the planet to explode. My parents were working on an evacuation plan but events forced them to send me here alone, in a prototype spacecraft just large enough for one person."

**This is all frankly hard to believe. Do you have any proof?**

"Aside from my own existence? No. But there are other interstellar objects in the Solar System. ʻOumuamua and Borisov are well known. There are at least three comets suspected to have been come from outside the Solar System. I'm not your first visitor. I'm just the first living person to have been sent here on purpose."

**Where is this spaceship of yours?**

"Stored somewhere safe."

**Do you have any evidence you're willing to share with people?**

"Yes. I have access to Kryptonian technology that I can demonstrate. And I think my abilities are a fairly solid piece of supporting evidence."

**Are you willing to share that technology?**

"No. People here are perfectly capable of developing similar systems with time and work. There's no need for me to give it to you. And believe me when I say you're better off without certain technologies."

**Such as?**

"Disintegrator spheres come to mind. And _vroz doxaj_ projectors were a blight on Kryptonian society."

**How long have you been here? Where have you been living?**

"My spacecraft arrived on the East Coast of the United States a few years ago. I've moved around a bit since then. It's taken me some time to learn how to use my new abilities and to learn about your laws and customs. Now that I'm familiar with my new home, I've decided to use those abilities and what I've learned to help people."

**So you found yourself incredibly strong, incredibly fast, and able to fly, and you've decided to just help people?**

"What else should I do?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lois complaining about Jimmy's objectivity being shot is of course hilarious, given how long it took her to see past Clark Kent's glasses and Superman's tight red trunks.


	3. Chapter 3

She's spent a year chasing two separate stories and by coincidence both of them drop into her lap in the same week. Except it's not a coincidence and they're not separate stories.

"Okay Lane," Lois mutters to herself under the rattling noise of the elevator. Clinging to the elevator rail, she focuses on not curling up into a ball and falling asleep on the elevator floor. "Stick to the basics. You can do this."

The elevator escapes classification as a death trap by the technicality of not having killed anyone in a few years, and like everything else in the Wylie Residence it smells of disinfectant. This is the building MetU shoves its scholarship students into, the ones who get just enough money to cover expenses but not enough money to bother upgrading their living quarters to anything resembling modernity. When Lois staggers out onto the top floor she nearly walks into the coffee table with a couple of half-empty bottles of dollar store hand sanitizer.

"Right." Lois straightens out her dress, straightens out her spine, and looks around the area for Cantrell Kent's room. She's had a long day too, Lois thinks. She's probably home. Walking carefully to avoid tripping over the floor, she heads to what she thinks is the right room. It's hard to tell. The numbers are a bit blurry.

She hears music from behind other doors but doesn't see anyone out in the common area. Lois Lane knocks three times, fast. After a brief wait the door pops open.

Kent looks ordinary enough. Hair down, glasses a bit crooked as though she's just jammed them on, jeans and a grey t-shirt. Kent holds a bundle of documents with the logo of a Hob's Bay community group Lois recognizes. Her ex Delgado does some projects with them.

"Hi Lois, what are - " Cantrell Kent looks up and down Lois, at her wrinkled and torn dress and her bloodshot eyes. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Ish." Leaning on wall next to Kent's open door, Lois glances back over her shoulder at the rest of the dorm. No one in sight.

"Little tired, but okay. So, quick question for you."

"Sure, I guess?"

Looking Kent right in the impossibly sky-blue eyes, Lois slaps her hard across the face.

* * *

* * *

**P.White** : Lane, what the hell is this?

**stayinyour** : wgt ostjd/

**P.White** : DId you have a stroke?

**stayinyour** : Hi Mr White, this is Cantrell Kent. Lois hurt her right hand earlier and can't type on her phone with her left. She wants to know what 'this' is?

**P.White** : That explains half the message from the insirance company. Now why is the Planet being charged for frames and a pair of specialty lenses?

**stayinyour** : She also broke my glasses

**P.White** : Tell her she's fired.

**P.White** : You:re fired too.

**stayinyour** : I DON'T EVEN WORK FOR YOU


End file.
